Ekiti State Governor, Biodun Oyebanji, said on Tuesday that his administration in the second term would leverage investments in infrastructure to move the state to industrial productivity and economic prosperity.Oyebanji spoke in Ado Ekiti while presenting the State of the State address to the House of Assembly as part of activities to wind down his first term in office, in preparation for inauguration for a fresh term of four years on Friday.The event was witnessed by the Deputy Governor, Mrs Monisade Afuye; the First Lady, Prof Olayemi Oyebanji; the State Chief Judge, Justice Lekan Ogunmoye, who was represented by Justice Olusegun Ogunyemi; Secretary to the State Government, Prof Habibat Adubiaro; Chief of Staff, Mr Oyeniyi Adebayo; party leaders and traditional rulers, marketmen and women, civil servants and residents.
The governor reiterated commitment to his administration’s social contract with the people of the state, saying, “We are in a hurry to ensure an earlier realisation of rapid economic prosperity of Ekiti for all.“As we enter the second term season, our focus will be leveraging the investment in infrastructure to jump-start Ekiti into industrial productivity and economic prosperity.“We believe social amenities and good infrastructure must be connected to economic activities for our people to be able to move out of poverty. We will therefore be pushing harder in the actualisation of our dreams in the two key economic domains that we want to leverage – agricultural industrialisation and knowledge-based economy through the state Agric Processing Zone and the Ekiti Knowledge Zone”.
The governor said that N11.7bn had been disbursed as gratuities to 3,642 state pensioners, while a sum of N36.6bn had been disbursed as monthly pensions to state pensioners from October 2022 to August 2026, adding that his administration had also cleared pension arrears for July to September 2018 amounting to N1.140bn.
Oyebanji disclosed that N7.78bn was disbursed to 2,659 beneficiaries while N35.7bn had been paid to 11,524 local government retirees as monthly pension.Oyebanji said that statistics from the National Bureau of Statistics showed that the overall state Gross Domestic Product, which moved from N2.4trillion in 2019 to N4.6trillion in 2023, was now poised to reach an unprecedented N8.8trillion mark.He said, “The economy of Ekiti State continues to hold an exciting promise in all ramifications. A quick summary of Ekiti’s GDP performance from the recently released NBS Report indicates that the overall State GDP moved from N2.4 trillion in 2019 to N4.6 trillion in 2023, a growth of 90 per cent. Recent projections suggest that Ekiti GDP now inches towards the N8.8 trillion mark.“This has moved Ekiti from the 33rd position to the 28th since APC was given the mandate to govern the state. Similarly, our contribution to the national GDP grew from 1.3 per cent to 1.6 per cent. Apparently, our economy is largely driven by trade, which contributed N1.7 trillion (37%) and agriculture, which contributed N1.05 trillion (23%). Both sectors contribute 60% to the state’s economy.
It is for this reason that we have intentionally given more attention to trade, investment and agriculture since they have proved to be areas of our comparative advantage. With our deliberate investment in aviation and tourism, we hope to further diversify our economic base in the new tenure.”Oyebanji said, “I am pleased to also inform you that due to a lot of innovative ideas, administrative autonomy and strategies that we adopted, the monthly internally generated revenue of the state has seen a significant upward improvement.
